10mo ago

Boats can't bend steel beams!

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I get all my bridge information from Andrew Tate and Alex Jones.
- They're both certainly people who know how to burn bridges when they see them.
  
  They’re also both people I’d like to see jump off one.

There is a saying in engineering.
Anyone can build a bridge.
It takes an engineer who can build a bridge just strong enough to let cars cross it.
- Oh man, as a (non structural) engineer I love the saying
  "Any asshole can build a bridge, but only an engineer can barely build a bridge"
  
  I’ve heard it as “Anyone can build a bridge that stands, it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.”
  
  Never heard that one. Sharp.
- Wait till you see what the airplane and rocket guys have to do.

"I just don't see how the whole bridge falls over that fast"
Bruh it is a ten million ton cargo ship bumping into it, do u think it's just gonna bounce off?
- Yeah but it literally floats so how heavy can it be?
  
  it floats way better than i do, so it can’t be that much heavier than i am. and let me tell you, there’s no way i could topple a bridge by running into it
  
  Physics does not work that way goodnight!
- That ship was about 100,000t.
  There's a fairly crude equation in the American bridge engineering standard that relates impact load to the mass of a ship, which is:
  P =√(DWT) +-50%
  Where DWT is the deadweight tonnage, and P is the impact load in meganewtons.
  So in this case P=315MN +-50% which is 315000kN or 31500 tonnes of force...
  For comparison, I'm working on a project where we're going to build a new concrete bridge on the ground next to where it needs to go (under a railway) then wait until we have a planned week with no trains running and push it into position using jacks. That bridge is a 60m long 20m wide 8m high concrete box with 1m thick walls and top and bottom slabs, and we think we will need about 30MN to install it (one tenth of the impact load from that ship).
  So yeah... that's quite a hit.
  
  Yeah but long tons or short tons. If they used shorter tons maybe the boat would have slipped right between the leg things. The tons were too long. 🪿
- Sure you can build a bridge they can withstand a crazy like that. It'll cost more than the cities it connects and nobody has a budget for that.
  
  Pfft, just put big magnets on either side of the bridge to make sure it goes in the middle!
- You see, gravity is just a theory see.
- Bro, it's a trillion ton bridge. You're comparing a bug flying into a windshield and telling me the windshield should break. R u serious 4 real?
  Huyuck. Sorry for that. But this is the kind of shit you're going to have to deal with. So you better have an answer for it.
  
  "If I hit your kneecap with a hammer, I'm only taking out one support, but your hole ass is hitting the ground" seems like a good response

I mean, all it takes is a look at the cost of shit like tuition and text books to conclude college is a scam, but that doesn't equal a disrespect for the knowledge of people who've gone through it.
- The difference lies in whether the speaker thinks the problem is the clearly evident financial exploitation or thinks that the education isn't valuable.
  
  (I almost walked away from commenting on this like three times. Hopefully I made sense) I don't believe that modern college equals education, necessarily. How many corporate VPs have impressive college credentials but took nothing away more than future networking? Education is extremely valuable as is an educated society. And I get that we're talking about people who do not value the societal benefit of a well-rounded education. Schools don't seem to value it anymore either. We've commodified "knowledge". It's merely a stepping stone to better earnings. Engineering and medicine, though, are two positions I think anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together should value the quality of their educations.
- There are mainly 2 types of "college is a scam" people. Type 1 is anti-education and places more value on what they typically refer to as "common sense" and think that you don't need an education to know about something. They're the type most likely to think they know more than experts and argue with engineers about bridges. Type 2 is more anti-capitalist and doesn't view education as a scam itself but rather how costly that education is and the opportunities provided to educated people who paid the price is what they see as a scam. They're usually capable of recognizing and acknowledging their lack of understanding about a topic and listen to experts because they do value education, they just think access to it should be easier and cheaper and provide more tangible results for the effort put into obtaining it. This post is probably talking about type 1.
- Same thing with Big Pharma. People hear that pharmaceutical companies are greedy and untrustworthy and think it means that their medicine doesn't work. It does, they just charge excessive amounts of money for it. We don't hate big pharma because vaccines don't work, we hate Big Pharma because they sell insulin at a 10,000% markup
- I don’t know, finishing my engineering degree has opened up many a door to well paying careers.
  My other two bachelor degrees (business and criminal justice) are completely useless.
  
  You just need to start designing prison management systems. Problem solved.

All I know about bridges is how to sell them, and I have one right now I can guarantee was built by an entirely white construction team. I examined their skull shapes myself. I'll just need about $80 million, and it's all yours, Elon.
- This reminds me of a line from K.I.Z.:
  "Nazis erkenn' ich an der Kopfform."
  (I recognise Nazis by the shape of their skulls.)
  
  Reminded me of this.
- Dude this thread has some of the funniest comments I've seen in a while and this one.

What the hell are people debating here? A 150.000 tonne object crashed into a structure made of thin sticks (comparatively speaking). There is no doubt that the bridge would collapse. Especially since an arch is only stable if it is undamaged.
- Yes, but you forget: lots of people are stupid.
  
  George Carlin never fails to be accurate: Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are even stupider than that.
  
  How dare you insult our nation's precious little conservatives!
- “Can a cargo ship really lose steering even if power is lost?”
  That’s the caption of a video I just went and found on Facebook shared by one of my distant hillbilly acquantances. I’m not even going to watch to see what it’s about.
  
  Honestly it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have backup power for the steering.

I mean, colleges are fucking expensive and their biggest appeal is a promise of a high paying job. Even public ones still eat up your soul and you may not necessarily be ready for "the job market" after graduation, or even academic life. Wholly different discussion.
Still, no way in hell I'll doubt that a bajillion ton (tonnes, whatever) of inertia can bring down a bridge. That's effectively an asteroid boulder slowly rolling down hill
- Same. I was thinking, "yes, college IS a scam, but I wouldn't argue with most experts in their respective fields."
  
  I don't think college is a scam. I think they are way overvalued in America. I think trades should be pushed more for sure.

I don't think Knowledge is a scam, but I firmly believe that the current College system(at least in the US) is a scam or at the very least super predatory, it's one of the only types of debt that you can't bankrupt on, and if you try to go for anything more than a bachelor's you're likely not going to be able to pay off the loan due to interest accumulation.
- I would say predatory is the right word, unless you have money.
  Although I would not put most community colleges in that boat.
  
  Shame that a lot of universities are starting to ban credits earned at community colleges. Can't get any more predatory than that.
  
  I agree, community colleges generally are going to be at least half the price of a private school, unfortunately in most States community colleges only offer associate's degree, either by choice or state regulation.
  so anyone hoping to do a bachelor's or a postgraduate degree are forced into larger University Systems where are the price is much higher per year.
  
  Hear hear.
  I had a better education from more passionate teachers at community college than I did at university.
- They didn't use...ok our colleges now are trades schools you pay to go to. People used to apprentice for careers. Paying for education used to mean an actual education, not job training.

Same dunce heads who argued against vaccines

What is there to argue? Like there's video evidence of it happening
- There were no construction workers killed in the collapse! It was all fake!
  The CIA caused the ship to lose power!
  The ship was remote controlled! There wasn’t actually anybody on board until after the collision!
  The “construction workers” were actually deep state black ops agents that were there to loosen bolts on the bridge to ensure it collapsed when the ship hit it.
  And so on… Never underestimate the fantasies that conspiracy theorists can come up with.
  
  Why is it that hard to believe that accidents happen? Just because something was interesting enough to reach headlines that means there had to have been an ulterior motive???
  I know you can't make sense of these people, but how the hell do you even make those leaps in the first place...
  I'm going back to my cave.
- BOAT FUEL CANT MELT STEEL BEAMS
- Same with 9/11. That doesn't stop people.

I have had more PhDs recommend against college than for it. I'm not joking. It's scary.
They'll tell you that if you can get by without a degree, by all means do or at least heavily consider it.
Education is undoubtedly important, as often evidenced by people's lack of it. But even those who ran the gauntlet decades ago have lost faith in the system.
And now we have a whole new litany of problems on their way because of the rising prominence of GenAI and I can confidently say that academia is wholly unprepared for the shit storm coming it's way.
- I'm guessing that's more because they've spent a good decade or so working on their degree, which is probably too specialized to get the job they want in their field.
  There is such a thing as too much college too. PhDs are very handy if you want to be a professor or go into a very specialized field and hope there are available jobs. Not so much for everyone else.
  
  There is also the cost to benefit ratio. Even IF you can get a job in your chosen field, the cost of the education to get there and the increasing pace of industrial change as required knowledge grows and changes can make your degree not really worth the effort. While I certainly don't know for sure, it could be conceivable that the world might not even miss half of collage graduates produced today. And most people could make a living with a "simpler and more focused" technical education.
  The world will always need carpenters, plumbers, electricians, accountants, and garbage collectors. And perhaps not so many people with a Master's degree in library sciences or maybe with the advent of AI, even human programmers.
  
  I think there's an inflationary effect where so many people go to university that a regular degree is devalued. It leads to people who wouldn't otherwise do postgraduate study to do some to be as competitive as an undergrad degree was years ago. I see people sleep walking into postgrad study because they don't know what to do after graduation because an undergrad degree is so limited nowadays
- We always seem to equate common sense and education.
  I've met some dense people with PhDs. And some smart people that never got formal education.
  Obviously best case is smart and educated. But you can't teach someone common sense.
  
  ^ This ... my father has his doctorate, yet is talking about chem trails, stockpiling guns and food for the coming apocalypse, and is a full on Trump supporting MAGAT right wing Christian.
  
  But you can’t teach someone common sense.
  Therapists do that sometimes
  
  Wish Lemmy had some sort of awards, because also this exactly.
- Just out of curiosity - which country was your sample from, if I may ask?
  
  US. So perhaps not representative of international trends. Altogether worrying with implications for US education standards though. The whole college/trade/career decision logic among the US public is seriously out of whack because parents kept preaching it was either college or burger flipping, unless you had a talent or parents with money of course.
  The US education system, academia, and workforce are all incredibly and seemingly unappealably fucked. The bigger picture is just some madman's abstract expressionism. I'm convinced the Russians are behind it all, somehow because just wtf it is actually looney levels of destabilizing and I fear it all comes crashing soon enough. But whatever, stop worrying and love the bomb I guess.

I have no formal training in building bridges. I actually only learned what a bridge was yesterday. Anyway, here's what I think happened and I will fight anyone who tells me different.
- and I will fight anyone who tells me different.
  That' more proactive than most sudden bridge experts who just call anyone who tells them different a liberal cuck.

Just use HostNetwork, why would you use a bridge

Hell, 3 hours in polybridge would probably give the common sense to realize that supports do in fact, hold the bridge up
- If seeing the very clear video of what happened doesn't convince them, nothing will.

College isn't a scam per se, but the for-profit system as it exists now totally is. So is the myth that everyone needs a college degree - an increasing number of jobs are removing that requirement because it's bullshit and actually limits the recruiting pool for a lot of jobs. It also encourages hiring management with degrees but no experience over internally promoting experienced workers without degrees. Ever had a new manager come in, change everything until it all sucks, then get a promotion or new job a year or two later? A lot of college degrees are mostly just a license to fail upwards.

I went to college for a stem degree... IDK if it's a scam, but I'm extremely far from happy with the value proposition. And my school was relatively affordable.
Of course, that's not a problem with colleges but with policy, imo

It can be a scam, especially if your not gonna use your degree.

Moran U

Unrelated to the content, only to the format, but what odd iteration of Facebook(?) or its like is this from? Is this the mobile interface of FB these days?
- That's definitely the official Facebook app, using dark mode. Looks just like mine, right now.
  
  Good ol Sure Wish I'd Finished Training.
  
  Ok so the bridge collision seems like an obvious accident to me, no questions there from me.
  But that photo of the truck I can't figure out how this happened and I suspect aliens and/or bigfoot might be involved somehow.

Engineering is one of the few non-scam college degrees
- And what are the apparently majority scam degrees?
  
  You’ll get a lot of people arguing arts degrees where there aren’t jobs are scams.
  Frankly, I think there’s a divide between what we expect of education and what education should be.
  There’s kind of a spectrum from required credentials like medical, law, or engineering degrees, to things like stem programs which are not required but open job doors, to arts degrees where there’s not really many direct careers being opened.
  Charging an arm and a leg for arts programs is a scam because it’s not opening the same economic opportunities as career based degrees. Having or providing arts degrees is totally fine, they just need to be cheaper.
  
  Anything from Trump University?
  
  Economics
  
  Any degree that will put you in debt without actually helping you to get out of that debt.
  
  Computer Science and Business. I say that with 15 years of experience in both those industries.
  
  I'd personally say marketing/publicity is a scam degree, though that's because of a heavy bias I have against advertising and marketing in general
  
  Art, philosophy, and English degrees :P
  Edit: I was kinda kidding guys, I took philosophy classes, my father is a sculptor, and I dabbled in the fine arts.
  That said, I encourage all of you in the traditional disciplines to have a plan for employment after school- teaching or related fields are fine! But have a plan!
- I don't believe anyone managed to learn anything useful about history or economics or literature in high school. Or about anything else. I wish more people were able to seriously study these subjects as adults with the guidance and correspondence of a global community of fellow students and access to centuries of past discussion and debate.
  People telling you there's nothing more to learn (or that the "soft sciences" offer nothing better than your personal intuition) are the scammers.
  
  It's worse than that, most things you learn in high school end up being either false or so simplified it ends up misleading (think common misconceptions). Biggest offenders tend to be history and hard sciences, although that might be mostly since we don't even offer things like psychology or sociology outside of a few elective APs (and imagine how prone to misinformation those classes could be if taught by someone following their personal intuition!)

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